Just For Fun

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is about to make a big legislative throw of the dice tomorrow, when he (finally) unveils the super-secret Senate Republican healthcare bill not only to the public, but also to the rest of his own caucus. It's a pretty big gamble for McConnell, since he has no way of knowing if he's got the votes to pass it or not. Either way -- whether successful or not -- McConnell says the effort will be over by the Independence Day holiday. Either they pass the bill, or the Senate will just move on to other agenda items.

McConnell has taken the drafting of the bill entirely upon himself, at this point. He hasn't yet gotten his own caucus to agree on any coherent plan to repeal and replace Obamacare. Please remember, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act passed a full seven years ago. In all that time, Republicans have never gotten behind a single replacement plan, so it's not all that surprising they can't manage to do so now. A group of 13 Republican senators was supposed to come up with a draft bill this year, but even this small a group could not agree on what to put in it. So McConnell just took over the process entirely. Senator Mike Lee -- one of those 13 senators -- just posted a video complaining that even he had no idea what will be in tomorrow's bill. So at this point, whatever is released tomorrow will have to logically be called "McConnellcare." His will be the only fingerprints on it, so it seems fitting.

Will McConnellcare be any better than Ryancare (the House bill that has been resoundingly rejected by the public at large)? Will it, in the words of Donald Trump, be less "mean"? We'll all find out, starting tomorrow.

Of course, McConnell may not see this as a particularly risky gamble. He knows that even if the Senate passes a bill, it will have to be reconciled with Ryancare in a House-Senate joint effort, which may prove to be impossible. And if it doesn't pass, McConnell will at least be able to say: "Hey, we tried," and push any blame for the bill's failure off on whichever individual Republicans vote against it. That's not exactly a political win/win situation for McConnell, but it's pretty close.

There are a handful of GOP senators that may well indeed vote against whatever McConnellcare bill emerges tomorrow. There's a real divide between those Republican senators who care that hundreds of thousands of their constituents got health insurance through Obamacare and don't want to see them tossed aside for purely ideological reasons, and those Republicans who have never even bought into the idea of the "replace" part in the first place -- people like Rand Paul, who just want a clean repeal of Obamacare with no other federal involvement in the health insurance industry whatsoever. This is the divide that so far has been impossible to bridge within the Republican caucus, and this is also one of the reasons McConnell is delaying the release of his bill's text as long as possible. Not everyone is going to be applauding the bill (no matter what's in it) even within his own party, and McConnell knows it.

The pressure on Republican senators is going to be intense, over the next week. On one side, there will be calls to pass anything, so they can go campaign on finally replacing Obamacare (which they've been promising their voters for the past seven years). On the other hand, senators represent entire states, not just cherry-picked Republican House districts, and many of them are already aware how unpopular Ryancare has proven to be. Paul Ryan did a masterful job of twisting arms in the House to get his bill passed, but that's going to be a lot harder in the Senate, for three basic reasons.

The first is that McConnell has already annoyed a large number of his Republicans by the secretive process he's attempting to use to jam a revision of one-sixth of the American economy through the Senate. One week from the public unveiling until they vote on it? That doesn't leave a lot of time for discussion or debate, and senators care about such things more than House members do.

The second big reason arm-twisting in the Senate is tougher is that only one-third of them are up for re-election next year. The others are either three or five years away from facing the voters (who have notoriously short attention spans as it is). So they feel less pressure, by design.

And the third big reason McConnell is going to have a tough time is the slim margin he's got for passing the bill. All it will take is three GOP senators deciding to vote no, and the bill will die. Rand Paul is probably already in this category. That means only two other Republicans have to review the McConnellcare bill and decide they simply cannot support it for one reason or another.

So the question will become whether the pressure from the party apparatus to "chalk up a victory -- any victory will do!" is greater than any three GOP senators' resolve not to vote for a bill that probably will have many of the House bill's shortcomings. This could mean Tea Party senators who decide McConnellcare is too generous as well as moderate senators who recoil from how many millions of people's lives would be negatively affected. Issues that have barely been talked about could become major roadblocks, such as whether McConnellcare defunds Planned Parenthood, or whether it includes money to address the opioid crisis. These are key sticking points for individual Republican senators, but there are also other Republicans on the other side of these issues as well. This is why this needle has been so hard to thread up until now -- it's not just how many people will lose insurance or how much Medicaid will be slashed. There are a whole host of issues that may become just as contentious.

McConnell is going to sound quite confident when he unveils the bill tomorrow, that's pretty much of a given. He's going to announce that he's successfully bridged the divide within his own party, and that McConnellcare is the best thing to come along since sliced bread. Beyond this posturing, though, I wonder whether this isn't all an exercise in futility for him.

If three or more Republicans stand firm against McConnellcare, then it will be voted down next week. The usual option in such a situation is that McConnell would quietly withdraw the vote from the schedule after getting a whipcount, in order to save both himself and the Republican Party some embarrassment. But it sure seems like McConnell is ruling this option out. If he personally pulls the bill and no vote is taken, then a whole lot of blame is going to be laid at his door. But if he holds the vote and the bill fails, then he can deflect the blame to the individuals who vote no. Politically, at this point, that's a safer option for McConnell.

Holding a vote that fails would also allow McConnell to do what he really wants to do anyway, which is to put the whole fiasco in his rearview mirror and move the Senate on to other pressing business. This may be the whole point of the exercise, in fact. A week or so ago, the members of the GOP group trying to hammer out a bill were beginning to walk back expectations that the bill would get a vote by the end of June. If McConnell truly thought it was possible to achieve consensus by giving them a few more weeks, he probably would have done so. But he didn't. He kept to his artificial self-imposed schedule anyway. This may signify that, to McConnell, the Senate legislative calendar is more important than continuing on the wild goose chase of finding the perfect Republican healthcare bill. He seems to be saying: "If it's going to fail, then it's going to fail, so let's just get it over with and move on."

Whatever happens, tomorrow is going to kick off one of the most intense weeks in the Senate in a long time. The Congressional Budget Office score of the bill is expected early next week, which will only add fuel to this fiery debate. There won't be much time to cut any deals or hammer out any compromises within the Republican caucus. The situation is basically going to be McConnellcare -- take it or leave it. The pressure from all sides will be enormous on every Republican senator.

Buckle up, everyone, because it's going to be a wild ride, that's for sure.

(Please let me in on that neat italic trick, I am unapologetically technophobic.)

I only remember one poll, don't ask me which. If the 59% in that poll against Ryancare/Trumpcare/McConnellcare are left wingers, then the Democratic Party will do well in 2018, should Republicare ( There.....fixed it for YOU(:>)) be "jammed down the throats" of the American public without proper debate, expert input and compassion for the vulnerable in our society. My bet is that the bill will have to be pulled by the Senator from Kentucky.

(Please let me in on that neat italic trick, I am unapologetically technophobic.)

Use greater than '' less then to begin the quote...

Makes sure you close it with greater than '' less then...

"You're welcome"
-Maui, MOANA

:D You can also do bold by using 'B' instead of I :D

I only remember one poll, don't ask me which. If the 59% in that poll against Ryancare/Trumpcare/McConnellcare are left wingers, then the Democratic Party will do well in 2018, should Republicare ( There.....fixed it for YOU(:>))

Touche' :D

be "jammed down the throats" of the American public without proper debate, expert input and compassion for the vulnerable in our society. My bet is that the bill will have to be pulled by the Senator from Kentucky.

Let me put it to you this way..

The Democrat Party has absolutely NO MORAL FOUNDATION to complain about crappy healthcare plans and shitty healthcare plans legislative process..

Do you have *ANYTHING* but the CBO report to support your criticism of the GOP healthcare plan???

Do you have ANY *objective* source that has a track record of being accurate when it comes to healthcare plan predictions??

No you do not..

Ergo, not only do ya'all not have standing to bring forth criticisms of the GOP healthcare plan, there is no factual evidence or objective evidence with a track record of correct predictions that supports your case against the GOP healthcare plan...

In short, I can only conclude that it's based on ideology, not on reality...

that one is called an appeal to purity, known colloquially as "no true scotsman." are we going to go through the entire list of logical fallacies?

We could do that..

OR...

You can just answer the question... :D

logic does not recognize "standing." not engaging would mean not responding. you're engaging, just with the person and not the argument - which is why it qualifies as a fallacy.

Which is why you qualify it as a fallacy because you have nothing with which to re-engage with.. :D

Now, if it were me...

I would start with the concession, "Yes, you are correct.. I have no moral foundation, no moral standing to make the argument.. But that doesn't change the veracity or factual nature of the argument itself."

Which is why you qualify it as a fallacy because you have nothing with which to re-engage with.. :D

that is correct, you have not yet made a valid argument, therefore i have nothing with which to engage.

here, let me help you. one valid argument you could make is that since obamacare has been implemented the overall death rate has not gone down.

in response, i would say that there are many non-medical factors contributing to the death rate, so it is not a good indicator of deaths that are medically preventable. further, specific diseases were prevented from killing people by removing financial barriers to diagnosis and treatment, like colon cancer.

that is correct, you have not yet made a valid argument, therefore i have nothing with which to engage.

Actually, I did make a valid argument.. You just CALL it invalid because it decimates yer position.. :D

There are no facts to support your claims against the Republican healthcare plan other than a prediction from an organization that has A> had many MANY false predictions with regards to healthcare and B> has a factual and proven Left Wing bias in their wrong predictions..

You see, I don't have to prove that the GOP healthcare is the greatest thing since frozen pizza..

I just have to show FACTS that indicate your claims against the GOP healthcare plan is based on ideological bias...

"Why are you putting tennis shows on!!??? You can't out run a bear!!!!"
"I don't have to out run a bear!! I just have to out run you!!"
-UP A CREEK

:D

The GOP HealthCare plan *MIGHT* be the deadly disaster you claim it will be..

It also MIGHT be the greatest thing since frozen pizza... :D

We *KNOW* that CrapCare was an unmitigated train wreck that broke under the strain of the lies and bullshit it was created from...

@m,
Conover's article in Forbes is thoughtful and well written. The other two you provided are fallacious and poorly argued, so I'll focus on that one. Conover challenges the statistics of the Harvard studies' estimated deaths, and on those grounds he has a point.

However, studies of specific diagnoses have found dramatic increases in early detection and prevention, and studies of hospital patients have indicated fewer preventable deaths. In addition to which, medical bankruptcy has plummeted. while Conover is right to advise caution, his advocacy of don'tcare has no factual basis

What it all boils down to is your argument consists of the CBO report...

Utter nonsensical BS. Setting aside your noise, most of this is simply common sense.

Regardless of the CBO numbers:
(1) Lower income people will lose access to health care they currently have.
(2) Higher income people will get a tax cut.

This ain't exactly rocket science. The Senate bill was written with Wall Street and profits in mind, not Americans.

Block granting Medicaid back to the states with per capita caps is problematic, particularly for states with higher populations of poor and/or elderly that would face federal reductions and likely be required to cut programs by changing eligibility, amount of benefits, and reimbursement to providers. These forced cuts would put states and providers that disproportionately rely on Medicaid at higher risk.

Like the House bill, this bill simply amends Obamacare and doesn't repeal it whatsoever. It's largely a financial bill that focuses on tax cuts for the wealthy while primarily taking away medical coverage from poor children, the elderly, the disabled, nursing home and long-term care providers and safety-net hospitals and clinics.

just for some context, the CBO has been quite good at forecasting, and has shown no prior bias in any particular direction. that they overestimated obamacare's figures on enrollment is not evidence that the office as a whole has any inherent bias. because so many different variables are involved in healthcare, it is difficult to predict accurately. the CBO estimated 21 million new enrollees and the real number turned out to be 11.5 million. that may not be right on the nose, but it's not out in left field either. their forecast errors on more predictable phenomena like GDP and revenue are remarkably accurate.

let us presume for the sake of argument that the CBO estimate is just as inaccurate as its initial obamacare prediction, and in the same direction. if so, that still leaves twelve million more people without coverage, at risk of getting sick, going broke and over ten thousand of them dying that would otherwise have lived. will that happen in ALL cases? of course not. is the estimate fallible? sure. but there's certainly NO evidence to suggest that the GOP bill might result in more care, better care, fewer bankruptcies or fewer deaths.

interesting polling issue: of the five major polls that have been completed in the last three days, three of the five have donald at exactly -21 and the other two at exactly -8. to me that divide screams out a difference in methodology. consider for a moment that rasmussen also provides a running count of the strength of support and opposition, as follows:

i don't think it's a coincidence that their strong minus weak index comes out to -13, which is exactly the difference between -8 and -21.

based on these measurements, my hypothesis is that rasmussen and yougov probably use two or four-point likert scales while the others use three or five-point scales. my guess is that about thirteen percent of respondents choose something to the effect of "neither approve nor disapprove" when the option is offered, but when that choice is removed and they are forced to choose one side of the fence, those same people tend to give donald the benefit of the doubt.

based on these measurements, my hypothesis is that rasmussen and yougov probably use two or four-point likert scales while the others use three or five-point scales. my guess is that about thirteen percent of respondents choose something to the effect of "neither approve nor disapprove" when the option is offered, but when that choice is removed and they are forced to choose one side of the fence, those same people tend to give donald the benefit of the doubt.

And that just kills ya, doesn't it?? :D

But ya don't mind when the President is NOT given the benefit of the doubt, eh?? :D

this is a tautology (yet another fallacy). sure i could be wrong, but the probability is much higher that i'm right. the CBO does base its predictions on known facts. that's why even though they were wrong on the extent of the change, they were right about its direction and scale. simply put, if you ONLY add eleven million insured and ONLY prevent ten thousand a year from dying, it's still a win.

And Odumbo's and Dumbocrat's TrainWreck bill was written with Insurance companies and drug companies and profits in mind, not Americans..

What's yer point? :D

Oh, excuse me... here let me dumb it down to idiot level:
(1) It doesn't repeal and replace Obamacare, which Republicans say it does. It doesn't because it's simply amendments that shift the costs from the rich to the poor.
(2) It raises premiums for those who need it most.
(3) It guts Medicaid and block grants it to the states, hitting poor and elderly states the hardest.
(4) Rich people get tax cuts and retroactive checks for investors.

If you want to fix rising health care costs for Americans, you don't accomplish that by shafting those who need it most by taking away tax credits and shifting the costs to them and effectively pricing them out of the market, causing them to lose their health care. There is a section in the Senate bill where they repeal the net investment tax. It is effectively a retroactive capital gains tax cut for the rich.

Medicaid is being gutted so rich people can get richer and investors can receive retroactive tax credits.

yes, both policies contain big giveaways to the rich and the insurance companies and drug companies. that point is conceded.

however, protecting people with pre-existing conditions is still better than allowing those protections to be removed by states. 11.5 million more people with insurance is still better than twenty-four million fewer or twelve million fewer. or two million fewer. no matter whether it's twenty million or two million, a little better is still better and a little worse would still be worse.

So you concede that Odumbo's and Dumbocrat's TrainWreck bill was written with Insurance companies and drug companies and profits in mind, not Americans...

So you concede you're an idiot.

And that you didn't have a problem with that then...

So you concede you're a liar and an idiot.

So, why do you have a problem with it now??

So you concede you're a liar, an idiot, and you can't read what I already wrote several times in my posts.

Because it's coming from the GOP...

I don't care who pulled it out of whose ass. Your standard argument about Party bigotry doesn't work with me. You seem to NOT be able to grasp the FACT that I'm not a Democrat. That same lame argument from you... your "Idiot Argument"... is overused, but it's obviously pretty much all you've got. Lying, asking to be spoon-fed links, and making up things about other posters is infinitely easier than actual discussion as long as you don't mind looking like an uneducated and easily conned minion of the GOP and the traitor Benedict Donald. Carry on! :)

Do you have "ANYTHING" but the CBO report to support your criticism of the GOP healthcare plan???

The previous replies to your multiple posts have been on point; I would like to add a little more to them with a source more credible than engineer Brian Frankie ( your first and third cites, since #3 praises his analysis) and the Forbes article, which I was unable to bring up on my MacBook.

The CBO report does not address the question of mortality resulting from the AHCA. It addresses the economic question of how many Americans would lose health insurance coverage were the ACHA to be adopted. The CBO are experienced, non-partisan economists who estimate 17 million who are currently covered in the Obamacare era would lose coverage in the first year, up to 24 million who would lose coverage in a decade.

It is intuitively obvious that death rates would rise if fewer people had health insurance and thereby access to health care. How could this be measured?
Fortunately, this question has been addressed by comparison of death rates in Massachusetts before and after the institution of Romneycare, the model for Obamacare. From the "Annals of Internal Medicine", a highly respected, peer-reviewed medical journal, we see a study of 146,825 persons conclude:

"Reform in Massachusetts was associated with a significant decrease in all-cause mortality compared with the control group (-2.9%, p=0.003, or an absolute decrease of 8.2 deaths per 100,000 adults). Deaths from causes amenable to health care also significantly decreased (-4.5%; p<.001). Changes were larger in counties with lower household incomes and higher pre-reform uninsured rates."

This translates to 1 death per year being prevented for each ~830 adults who gained health insurance. When that is applied to the 17,000,000 who would lose insurance one comes up with about 20,000 deaths within the period of the study, which was about 4 years.

Granted, in a study of this kind is difficult to compare cohorts sequentially because of multiple factors, including short-term discrepancies in disease prevalence,continual improvements in treatment modalities; and for the need for long-term follow-up on the effect of access to health care on chronic diseases and the statistical blip of increased ability to determine cause of death when insurance-covered patients can be diagnosed rather than assigned to "died of natural causes". (These last two, in case you missed my point, are probable sources of confusion for Engineer Frankie and the Forbes article, among others which have not been considered.)

So, while you are entitled to quibble about the exact numbers due to the inherent difficulties, in these analyses, it is not credible to deny that tens of thousands of unnecessary deaths will occur, especially among poorer Americans, as a result of taking away medical insurance, even the admittedly flawed Obamacare. Since the AHCA will remove the Medicaid safety net to our poorest over time, it will cause more deaths than if Obamacare remained the law of the land and was not undermined, as is now proposed under the Trump budget, by withholding the subsidies.

So you concede you're a liar, an idiot, and you can't read what I already wrote several times in my posts.

michale himself has acknowledged on numerous occasions that he's not the sharpest tool in the shed, which in my view puts him head and shoulders above most people who tend to read the right wing talking points. name-calling is not productive, and does not help him see where his logic is flawed and his factual claims are inaccurate. play nice!

I think you're right, CW. I think McConnell slapped this together just to get rid of it.

I think he thinks it's a third rail issue, and wants to get it off the table well before the midterms, but also realizes that having NO vote would also be held against the Republicans by the their own base. So this.

That doesn't mean, of course, that he won't make a show of trying to pass it, so I expect we'll see Yurtle make the rounds on all the Sunday shows. Maybe he'll even do a 'Full Ginsberg'. heh.

longest confirmed kill shot in military history at a staggering distance of 3,450 metres. ... It took under 10 seconds to hit the target.

That is plumb amazing.

I'm sure you know how such time and distance allows random events to disrupt one's aim.

It's all wrapped up in two words which we can find in a movie quote. You're an authoritative source for movie quotes, but I don't recall the name of the film in which John Wayne's character reminds his love interest, who has taken up a rifle to help in a defense: "Windage and elevation, Mrs [???]. Windage and elevation."

After straining for a minute to defend the distinctive off-topic nature of the above comment, I thought of one.

It is just that I'm in an expansive mood, just as I was Tuesday night, and for the same reason.

Tuesday, a calcified party and their mega-donors shot themselves in the foot trying again to foist off their self image, this time with a candidate and message cut from the same cloth as Macron, only using knock-off blueprints, along with instructions which translated badly.

The Senate bill is so bad that now we know that nothing will see the light of day any time soon. And, in the meantime, this will be TrumpCare. The Democrats, the media, and the special interest groups were ready for it. Those winds will carry the message to those needing to touch and feel it.

Just for example: soon the the elderly, and the adult children who might otherwise need to somehow provide the care, will be lead to understand that this threatens part of the arc of their care, provided through Medicaid and not through Medicare.

Whether it would or not, or whether it should, or not: who cares? "The genius of the left is the fact an entitlement once granted can never be rescinded." That's attributable at least as far back as Pat Buchanan.

For a public at large, whether that is any longer "fact" is open to debate. For the generation now on Medicare, urban and rural alike, however, it's as much a fact as the need for the right windage and elevation.

For a public at large, whether that is any longer "fact" is open to debate. For the generation now on Medicare, urban and rural alike, however, it's as much a fact as the need for the right windage and elevation.

Rural Medicare recipients are going to feel the pinch. Rural hospitals are far more expensive per patient than urban ones and removing more patients from the pool will result in hospital closures and poorer services. Also, specialists find it very difficult to make money in sparsely populated areas.

The rural divide has just gotten worse, and since the 45-istas are predominantly rural and old, they are going to feel the pain of their own stupidity.

It is just a shame that sane people are going to get hurt at the same time.

I don't think anybody here likes Jimmy Dore, but in this segment he shows a video that someone else put together about the corporate media that is well worth watching.
Funny, sad, disturbing... but not political in any partisan way.
There is a brief commentary before, and he stops it twice for a little more, but I think everyone can tolerate it... this is not a trick.

You must understand that people who have a muscular set of critical thinking skills can watch any news they wish - to glean whatever they wish to glean - and you don't need to feel sorry for them.

Now, as for those "consumers of news" who do not have the luxury of being able to intelligently process the news they consume because they do not possess critical thinking skills ... go ahead and feel sorry for them but, that seems to me to be a wasted emotion.

I'm open to the opinion that there is a left wing bias in these, however the BBC is pretty independent and facts oriented. The Economist, if anything, leans right, certainly Libertarian. The others are just some of the remaining quality newspapers that try to check their facts and clearly identify opinion from news.

I don't know if you made it to the end, but one of the off camera cohosts mentioned how that process has decimated the number of journalists being employed and created a vacuum in local news (actual journalism even if not up to national or international standards).

There are a lot fewer dogs watching the local hen houses these days. And those stories, like the type which may have covered fire code violations at the Grenfell Towers (I don't know if the same process is occurring in the UK) used to play an important role in our society.

Rural Medicare recipients are going to feel the pinch. Rural hospitals are far more expensive per patient than urban ones and removing more patients from the pool will result in hospital closures and poorer services. Also, specialists find it very difficult to make money in sparsely populated areas.

The rural divide has just gotten worse, and since the 45-istas are predominantly rural and old, they are going to feel the pain of their own stupidity.

It is just a shame that sane people are going to get hurt at the same time.

Yea, that's the claim..

Yet it is ONLY supported by political spin and not factual reality...

You MAY turn out to be right..

But what ya'all (for the most part) can't concede is that ya'all MAY turn out to be wrong...